Victim Or Scammer? You Decide

The man needed a job, and so he said that when the bank check for $1,950 arrived in the mail, he jumped at the accompanying offer to become a mystery shopper.

All he had to do was cash the check and send the company $200 as a Western Union money transfer. The rest was for him to use for mystery shopping to evaluate businesses, he was told. Afterward, heâ€™d file reports about his experiences. Simple enough.

On Nov. 9, he went to his bank, Bank of America, but employees there told him they couldnâ€™t cash the check. Since it appeared to be a Wells Fargo check, he was told to go there.

At a Wells Fargo branch in DeSoto, he was told to have a seat. Fifteen minutes later, a DeSoto police officer walked up to him and said, â€œSir, can you stand and put your hands behind your back, please?â€

â€œWhat?â€ the man asked.

As first reported in the Dave Lieber column in the Dec. 20, 2009 Watchdog column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the man was arrested on suspicion of forgery of a financial instrument. On Nov. 30, he was indicted by a Dallas grand jury.

This is the first time Iâ€™ve seen a case where the apparent victim of a scam is arrested. But there are two important facts that must be disclosed.

Alfred Hitchcock made a 1956 movie about a man falsely accused of a crime.

Second, he is one of the most honored ex-offenders in Texas. Two days before his arrest, the Dallas office of the state Parole Division held its annual Success Celebration, at which Shaheed was honored for helping ex-offenders succeed after they are freed.

When I asked the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to describe the award he received, the agency released a 171-word statement that describes his good deeds, calls him the ideal client and says he is â€œtrying to promote positive change.â€

How much Shaheedâ€™s criminal record contributed to his current predicament is hard to say. He has a court date Tuesday, and the charges could be sorted out then. When I asked about his case, the DeSoto police and the Dallas County district attorneyâ€™s office mentioned his criminal background.

Shaheed said that when the mystery shopper offer arrived, he was in a confused state because his 20-year-old daughter, from whom he was estranged, had died suddenly Nov. 5.

At the time, he said he wasnâ€™t aware that the mystery shopper ploy is a common scam. Targets of the scam are told to cash a check and send a portion of it to the purported mystery shopping company. The Federal Trade Commission says on its Web site: â€œThe truth is that it is unnecessary to pay money to anyone to get into the mystery shopper business. ?.?.?.? Consumers who try to get a refund from promoters of mystery shopping jobs usually are out of luck. Either the business doesnâ€™t return the phone calls, or if it does, itâ€™s to try another pitch.â€

Shaheed showed me e-mails from a Fred Mcguire of New York. (Read them here.) Shaheed said he believed that the e-mails were authentic â€” but they fit the classic scam. The best clue that something was wrong came in the task that Mcguire assigned him: Shaheed was supposed to visit his neighborhood Western Union office and describe all the mechanics of wire transfers from that office, including the name of money agents on duty.

When police confronted him at the bank, Shaheed said â€œhe was a mystery shopper on the Internet,â€ according to a police report.

He spent four days in jail before his wife posted bail.

He is being represented by a public defender who didnâ€™t return my calls.

Once released, Shaheed called Fred Mcguire in New York to tell him what happened.

â€œThereâ€™s something funny about the number,â€ he told me. â€œIt just rang as if it were a phone booth or something.â€

Shaheed has tried to explain that he was the intended victim of a scam.

â€œDoesnâ€™t anyone want to listen to me?â€ he asked. â€œIâ€™ve presented all the proof. I thought it was a check, brother. You know what I mean? I thought I was getting a part-time job.â€

DeSoto police Capt. Ron Smith is skeptical of Shaheedâ€™s story. â€œDonâ€™t believe everything you hear,â€ Smith said. Although he acknowledged he had not reviewed the case file, Smith said he would be surprised if Shaheed was the victim of a scam.

In 1969, Shaheed, then known as Randolph Brown, killed a grocery store clerk in a bungled robbery attempt. Later that night, he attempted another robbery. All told, he shot at seven people, killing one and wounding two.

He was already infamous. Two years earlier, he had walked onto a Fort Worth bus holding a knife. When the driver kicked him and a friend off, he punched the driver, who started shooting. His friend was killed. He turned himself in on television at KXAS/Channel 5.

He was convicted of murder for the 1969 slaying and sent to prison, and he was paroled in 1984. After his release, he made a deal with the FBI to go undercover to break up a drug ring. Afterward, he was temporarily placed in the witness protection program. He testified against 17 defendants, the Star-Telegram has reported. All were convicted.

Then he became a minister and worked on many anti-gang programs for kids â€” his new lifeâ€™s work. For that he was honored by the Parole Division. Excerpts from its statement released to me last week:

â€œWith the last three years, Randolph Brown has become an advocate for other offenders. In 2005, Brown started a program now called â€˜Ex-Offenderâ€™s of America Alumni Association,â€™ or XOAAA, where prison ministry goes beyond prayer.

â€œThrough his program, Brown uses his voice, gifts, talents and ministry to bring forth healing for ex-offenders and those affiliated with them. The program promotes employment searches, how to get a job, finance management, spiritual counseling and more.

â€œThe XOAAA program does not benefit just offenders but crime victims and family members as well.â€

Brown also organized the Coming Up Program in Fort Worth, the statement says.

After praising his work on a radio program and cable TV, the Parole Division concluded, â€œOffender is more than just an ideal client. He is an advocate for ex-offenders trying to promote positive change within our community.â€

3 Responses to Victim Or Scammer? You Decide

And people wonder how innocent people with non-conviction arrest records, who were mistakenly arrested once, get arrested again and again.

Look at this guy, a definite past criminal, a convict, and they arrested him essentially on the old charges, for being what he was, what he did in a past incident years ago.

The innocent get rearrested too, for being what the cops said they were but they weren’t, because cops don’t believe arrests are wrong ever.

This case will be thrown out. The prejudice is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Too many cops are too dumb and prosecutors too bizarre, sadistic and amoral to leave any intelligent person with much faith in the criminal justice system